BackupManager

From openSUSE

Backup Manager is a simple backup application for GNOME. Backup Manager is intended to work with as little user interaction as possible. Currently, Backup Manager only supports backing up to a path on the local file system. This path can be on a removable device mounted locally or a file system from a remote machine mounted locally (sshfs or other FUSE file systems). It currently uses rdiff-backup as the backup mechanism, but can easily be modified to use others.

Backup

The application used to configure the backup system is backup-manager-settings. The user need to specify what they want to backup, where they want to backup to, and how often they want to backup. There is also an option to perform the initial backup immediately. The Exceptions tab allows the user to specify files and/or folders that should be ignored during backup. Clicking "Save" will save your backup configuration and schedule your backups via cron.

Restore

Data restoration is handled by backup-manager-restore. By default, backup-manager-restore uses your backup configuration to detect your backup source and shows its path under "Backup Source". The user needs to tell backup-manager-restore what it wants to restore and what point in time it wants to restore from.

FAQ

• Q: Why did you write this thing?

A: Because my manager told me to. Also, most of the other backup UIs were too complicated.

• Q: Why rdiff-backup?

A: Rdiff-backup combines the best of mirroring and incremental backup systems, it's been around for a while, and is actively maintained. The total rdiff-backup specific code in backup-manager is ~150 lines of Python. Using another backup mechanism should be pretty easy to do.

• Q: Where can I get the source for this puppy?

A: http://code.google.com/p/wolfheads

• Q: What is a Pigovian Tax?

A: A Pigovian Tax, named after Arthur Pigou, is a tax levied to correct for negative externalities.